Content guidelines
Hate, discrimination and harassment
Hate speech and discriminatory language is not permitted on Booking.com. We want all our guests and partners to feel safe and respected, so we don’t allow:
Content promoting violence, discriminatory language or hatred against a person or groups based on the basis of who they are – this includes any form of discrimination based on the following characteristics: age, disability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, nationality, race, immigration status, religion, sex, sexual orientation, veteran status, caste, political opinion and serious diseases.
Content that harasses, bullies or threatens others (or incites others to participate in these activities) – Booking.com should be a safe place for all our users and so we will take a firm stance with respect to any content that could be deemed intimidating, threatening, rude or disparaging.
Violent, offensive and restricted content
Booking.com is not a place for violent or offensive content, or content that’s deemed legally restricted based on local laws. We don’t allow:
Content that promotes, facilitates or encourages any kind of violence against others – this includes threats of violence, recommending violence or any declaration to commit violence.
Content that’s obscene, offensive or isn’t appropriate for all audiences.
Content that offers, sells, advertises or facilitates the sale of regulated or restricted goods and services.
Terrorism related content – includes content that promotes, supports or incites acts of terrorism, or that supports or represents any terrorist organisation, its leaders or associated violent activities. In addition, we don’t allow content that we deem, in our sole discretion and as aligned with the Consolidated United Nations Security Council Sanctions List, to promote, support or incite acts of violent extremism, or that supports or represents any organisation engaged in violent extremism.
Animal welfare
Animal cruelty isn’t tolerated by Booking.com. Guests, partners and employees are expected to respect domestic animals and wildlife and to foster living conditions for animals that align with our Animal Welfare Guidelines.
We don’t allow:
Content that displays or promotes direct contact with wild animals
Content that displays or promotes animals in captivity with bad welfare conditions
Content relating to activities, entertainment or sport events that are known to cause distress and harm to animals
Content of a sexual nature
We don’t allow content that contains sexually explicit material, nudity or pornographic acts. This includes any content including text, digital and animated images that supports, promotes or depicts child sexual exploitation or sexualised content of suspected minors (also known as Child Sexual Abuse Material or CSAM).
Photos and images are a valuable resource on Booking.com. In order to be helpful to our community, they need to be useful, informative and related to the actual travel experience.
We don’t allow:
Images that don’t relate to the actual travel experience
Images that contravene with any of the policies, standards or guidelines included here
Also, written content needs to be legible and related to the travel experience. We don’t allow content that’s not understandable, coherent or doesn’t make grammatical sense.
Intellectual property
Booking.com respects intellectual property rights and expects its guests and partners to do the same. Our policy is to:
Review cases of notified intellectual property infringement and act to remove instances of infringing or suspected infringing content
Disable accounts or otherwise restrict access to users who repeatedly infringe the intellectual property rights of others
If you’d like to report copyright infringement, you can do so using our copyright infringement reporting form.
Personal and other confidential data
Booking.com takes its privacy and data protection obligations seriously, in line with our applicable Privacy Statement.
We don't allow content that may put the privacy of our guests and other data subjects at increased risk. For example, guests or partners erroneously sharing personal data about other persons, including but not limited to sensitive or special-category personal data. This also includes credit card numbers, national identification numbers, driver's and other licence numbers, addresses or any other information that isn’t publicly accessible.
Booking.com aims to protect our guests and partners from reviews that aren’t based on the experience of a real customer, or content that isn’t related to the topic or experience of travelling.
We don’t allow:
Content that isn’t relevant to Booking.com, the stay or actual travel experience
Content that’s likely to mislead, deceive or confuse Booking.com users
Any of our guests or partners to misrepresent themselves or impersonate another person
At Booking.com, we believe that contributions are most helpful when they are honest, unbiased and contain objective information. In particular, reviews left on Booking.com should reflect genuine guest experiences.
We don’t allow:
Content created solely for the purpose of self-promotion, advertising or other commercial content
Commercial content that promotes or advertises specific services
Content that includes contact details or information designed to promote or advertise specific services
A partner to review their own listing, business or accommodation
We value the opinion of our contributors. That’s why only a customer who has booked through Booking.com can write a review. If the guest arrives at the accommodation, they’ll be able to leave a review, even if they don’t complete their stay. However, if a reservation is cancelled before the check-in day, the guest won’t receive a review questionnaire.
If a review is written under these circumstances, we do allow:
Reviews that contain critical information that would be relevant for a future guest
Reviews that contain feedback about communication between the accommodation and the guest
Reviews that are relevant to the travel experience
